In telecommunication networks, a call made by a calling party to a called party is routed through a source switch of the calling party to a destination switch of the called party. If the called party is unavailable, for example, due to the called party's communication device being switched off, an occurrence of a busy signal, or an out of network signal, the call is sometimes redirected to a server that provides, for example, voice services such as an automatic voice short message service (AVSMS), voicemail, etc., or non-voice services at the called party side. This redirection results in the call being answered at the destination switch, but not by the called party.
Conventionally billing of the calling party is under the control of the source switch. It is the source switch that decides whether to charge for the call and if so, the amount to be charged. In the case of toll free calls, the source switch knows that it is a toll free call and thus does not charge the calling party. In the case of a toll free call, the call charge is billed to the called party, and the destination switch generates the call charges events and charges the called party accordingly.
Conventionally, a charging server associated with the calling party bills the calling party for utilizing voice services and non-voice services provided by the server based on a subscription plan of the calling party. The server that provides the voice services or the non-voice services and to which the call is redirected by the destination switch has no control over billing the calling party via the destination switch for the services utilized by the calling party. There is a need for providing control of billing of the calling party to the server based on services provided to the calling party by the server.
Hence, there is a long felt but unresolved need for a method and system that detects the redirection of an unanswered call attempt made to the called party by the calling party to a server at the called party side, disables billing of the calling party via the source switch, and initiates billing of the calling party via the destination switch based on services provided to the calling party by the server.